A Scare
by laughXoutXloud
Summary: Vanessa has a nightmare of Zac, plagued with pain. She is only awoken with a call from Zac moments later, and she races to his house to see Zac like she had in her dream. She is haunted by the coincidence. A spin on the story of Zac's appendectomy. ZV.


**A/N: So I was sifting through my documents folder and found this. I wrote this a very long time ago about the time Zac had to get an appendectomy. I thought you guys might want to read it. I hope you all enjoy the spin I put on the story. Short and sweet. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Vanessa Hudgens or Zac Efron or Ugg boots. **

* * *

"Huh!" Vanessa gasped desperately as she shot up to a sitting position on her suddenly cold and empty bed. Sweat trickled down her forehead and beaded on her clammy flesh, her mouth parched and obtaining the most disgusting, dry flavor she had ever tasted. Eerie shadows scampered across the darkened walls of her room, a usually comforting place that all of a sudden seemed so vicious and petrifying. Wicked flashes of her nightmare flared through her mind at a blinding pace that made her heart hammer deliriously inside her. She felt as if her ginormous bed would suddenly swallow her whole; encasing her, imprisoning her, and the uncanny freeze of it making chills dart up and down her spine.

The night suddenly frightened her.

She glanced at the clock; it was one in the morning. She only wanted one person in this world right now. Just one person to make it all better. As if on cue, she heard her phone buzzing on the nightstand beside her. She picked it up immediately, glancing at the caller ID.

"Zac?" Vanessa whimpered pitifully into the iPhone, biting down harshly on her trembling bottom lip. "Zac?"

He wasn't answering. Her heart quickened in anxiety.

She heard weighted pants on the other side of the phone.

"Baby?" he breathed heavily, his tone low with immense concern. His forehead creased on the other side of the line. "What's the matter?"

"I had a nightmare about you—on the floor about to d-die and I really just need to see you, alive, right now…." Vanessa whispered gravely, tears creeping into her hollow voice.

"Baby…Van, can you come over? Right…n-now?" he forced out of his mouth in pain, cringing as he coiled up into a sphere on the floor.

"What's wrong?" Vanessa panicked wildly, her brown eyes widening as she whipped off the covers and rocketed to a standing position. "Zac, tell me—what the f-fuck is wrong?" Her voice wavered dangerously and her worried eyes watered immediately.

"Just come, baby, okay?" he huffed huskily, panting more severely now. He paused to inhale deeply, managing to gasp out raspily, "I love you."

"I love you—" Vanessa began desperately, urgency jumping in her erratic voice.

"—I love you so much."

And the call ended.

Her mind was in such a wild whirl that she went on complete autopilot. She didn't even change out of her pajamas, which at the moment was nearly nothing. She simply wore a faded T-shirt of Zac's, which just reached over her wobbling knees. She recklessly raced around her murky room, snatching things; her keys, her purse, tossing her phone sloppily into her purse…. She skidded quickly down the wooden steps, the rest of her peacefully slumbering family in the back of her mind. She would call them later. She barely just managed the sense to stuff her icy feet into a pair of beaten Ugg boots, frenziedly wrenching out a random coat from the front foyer closet and not even putting it on. She couldn't afford to lose time. She hastily slung her bag around her shoulder, her coat dangling from her arm carelessly as she darted out the door.

She was only met with pouring rain, thumping violently upon her back in the sinful darkness.

Her stomach dropped, but she charged on through the solid sheets of rain, so thick and dark she could hardly distinguish her car, which blended in perfectly against the black of the night. She—frozen to the bone in her thin blue T-shirt, legs bare and water filling her boots to the brim—yanked open the door of her pristine Audi, ramming herself in. She flung the sodden jacket onto the seat beside her, not thinking, jamming her key roughly into the slot and revving the new car to an awakened state. She didn't waste a valuable second, growling the vehicle out of the paved driveway and speeding down the empty road. The whole neighborhood seemed still and calm and sleepy, but frenzy was spinning her brain. Her hands gripped the steering wheel with such unconscious force that her knuckles were white, tight.

Her baby was okay, she assured herself. He was okay.

She hurriedly swerved into the parking lot of his apartment complex, madly dodging out of the car and forgetting her coat inside it. She fumbled with her jingling keys, wedging it in and twisting, her heart thrashing hysterically in her chest. She propelled open the door with unfamiliar power, her mouth dropping agape, her petite form shivering. The apartment was strangely motionless and quiet. _Mostly_ quiet at least—she could hear his gruff breathing from somewhere in the flat. She couldn't find the voice to speak. She wanted to holler out his precious name, but no matter how much she wanted to, her throat wouldn't allow it. She finally seemed to snap to life, dashing around the home like crazy. He wasn't anywhere to be seen. Her heart only pounded harder. There was only place left to check—the bathroom. That had been the same place she had seen him in her dream, lying unresponsively on the floor…. She sucked in a deep, quavering breath and barged through the bathroom door, nearly shrieking in horror as she saw him. He was there on the white tiles, breathless and curled into a stiff ball, his blue eyes dreadfully blank. Vanessa collapsed weakly onto her knees, pulling his head onto her lap, not realizing she was crying until she found her face warm and wet.

"Babe…you're here," Zac mumbled almost incoherently, closing his eyes.

"What happened?" Vanessa whispered shakily. "What the fuck happened?" She was afraid to touch his unrecognizable face of agony, which appeared so foreign from the one she was familiar with.

"My stomach hurts," Zac groaned hoarsely and rolled over onto her, clutching her naked knee as the pain rumbled through him.

She needed to call the emergency room…shit, what was the number again? 711? No, not the quick stop shop. 811? No, not the first three digits of Zac's cell phone number…. She was quite positive the last two digits were both ones.

Zac's hand reached up to touch her face, but as pain bulldozed through his stomach, his hand fell limply in her lap, his fingers grazing her stomach and causing it to flip inside her.

Vanessa fished for her phone, impulsively dialing 911.

"Hello? How may I he—"

"—He h-has a stomachache," Vanessa stammered blindly as she unconsciously stroked the side of Zac's face. "A r-really, _really_ bad one and he's on the bathroom floor hardly moving and we need an am-ambulance ASAP." She was choking all over her words, but she couldn't help herself. Was she overreacting? Probably she was, but the way reality was mimicking her nauseating nightmare haunted her. As she stuttered out Zac's address, she could feel Zac gripping her knee harder, groaning. He pressed his mouth into Vanessa's cold thigh, his lips that were too warm on her bare skin muffling his loud moans.

"They're coming, baby," Vanessa reassured him soothingly, trying to calm herself. Her fingers combed through Zac's sweaty hair. "They're coming, they're coming."

Those ten minutes waiting for the ambulance felt like ten excruciating hours. Vanessa found that she was rocking back and forth on her knees, cradling Zac's limp head in her lap like it was the last few minutes of his life. For all she knew, they were. She bent down and carefully, slowly, peppered the gentlest kisses to his damp forehead, letting her lips linger on his skin.  
"I love you," she murmured softly to him in between kisses, clearing back the hair from his forehead with her hand. "I love you."

"I…l-love you," Zac responded disjointedly through a moan, arching in pain.

When Vanessa first heard the siren signaling the ambulance's arrival, bounding up the street, her stomach leapt inside of her. She gingerly placed Zac's head on the tile, darting up and out of the bathroom, through the living room, and up to the front door. The ambulance had already pulled into the parking lot, and the attendants were efficiently clearing their way through the darkness with a stretcher and equipment. Vanessa thrust open the door for them.

The first attendant, upon seeing her petrified and pallid yet beautiful face, knew exactly who she was. His eyebrows shot up immediately. Vanessa recognized this behavior, quickly inferring that he had realized who she was. But she had no time for stupid autographs.

"Here," Vanessa blubbered dizzily, whizzing back to the bathroom with a promising team at her tail.

Everything happened so rapidly. Zac was transferred onto the stretcher and loaded into the whirring ambulance, the blinking red lights making Vanessa nervous alone in addition to the fact that her boyfriend was in critical condition. After some begging, the attendants finally let Vanessa accompany a lifeless-looking Zac, and she held and stroked his hand in the quarter hour ride to the hospital.

Her heart shattered silently as she saw Zac being hastily whisked away by the attendants; herself, left impatiently to wait in the waiting room.

The first hour she spent spinning in a mental flurry of paranoid thoughts. She never was this paranoid. Why was she so paranoid? Zac was going to be fine. The doctor had told her appendectomy. A standard procedure. There was only the smallest chance something could go wrong…but what if that was their chance? What if something bad really did happen to them? There was always the chance.

She sat on her freezing hands and rocked back and forth and could hardly bear to eat, though her stomach was growling in protest. She received many eyebrow raises and wide-eyed, confused stares from others in the waiting room, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, she was Vanessa Hudgens. No one ever knew how to react in her "godly celebrity" presence anymore. Everyone treated her like she was some sort of heavenly, flawless goddess, but that could not be any more untrue. She was full of flaws. She was normal. She was just like everyone else.

Vanessa found herself heatedly shouting these thoughts in her mind in frustration. How pathetic she was. How tired she was. She needed to get some sleep. Once she did, the real Vanessa Hudgens would overtake this exhausted, overstressed version that was using her body.

Secondly, she was still wearing just a short-sleeved, oversized T-shirt. It was soaked too, and only then did she notice that she was shivering, and that she could not stop no matter how hard she tried. The T-shirt skimmed her knees, which were trembling themselves. Her hair was dripping with water still, and had already begun to curl. She had forgotten to put on socks in her frenzy hours earlier, and her frozen feet were swimming in her boots, overflowing with rainwater. And that jacket she had snatched from her house? She vaguely remembered throwing it on Zac's living room sofa in her rush to find him. It was January, for God's sake. Januarys around Los Angeles were not harsh, but in a violent thunderstorm and a thin T-shirt, they very well could be.

Thirdly, she was restless. She had never been so jittery in her life. Most people were sitting silently, either listening to music with earphones or reading the newspaper. But how could she ever manage to do something like that at a time like this one? No, no, no. She would never be able to.

After she snapped out of her hour-long period of hysteria, she thought she should make calls. She called Zac's parents first. As it was three in the morning, they were still sleeping. She left a very petrified voice message, her voice unstable all the while. She left a similar but briefer message to her parents, explaining her absence. She texted Ashley, though knowing she would not receive the message until she awoke hours later.

The minutes lugged by. One by one. Vanessa glared at the evil clock that was glued to the wall, her eyes tracking every tick and tock that the red little hand made. Her eyes were growing dry from the lack of blinking.

How she detested hospitals. How she loathed waiting. Her eyes began to droop with the sleep she had pushed off to the side hours before, and some time later, she found that she had laid down and balled up into a ball, taking a much-needed snooze. Her eyes flickered open instantly at the realization that she had fallen asleep. She quickly sat up, surprised to see a doctor walking towards her.

"Vanessa Hudgens," the doctor began. "You are here for Zac Efron?"

"Yes," Vanessa mumbled very rapidly, her eyes engorging at the mere thought of seeing the man whom she was so worried about.

"This way."

Vanessa followed the middle-aged doctor into a private room. Her heart halted at the sight of Zac lying exhaustedly in the center of the spotlessly clean bed, his weak form draped with white blankets. Vanessa's jaw unhinged, and she gaped wordlessly at him for a moment, wading by the edge of the bed. He had never looked so powerless before. Her poor Zac….

"I'll give you a moment," the doctor sighed. "I'll come back later."

The instant the doctor left the room, the door closing with a quiet sound behind them, she felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders.

"Baby?" Zac muttered sluggishly in his sleep. His head lolled on his pillow. He could sense her presence anywhere, despite the fact that she had not spoken a word. He could always feel her in a room.

Vanessa took a bold step forward, immediately reaching her hand out to rest on Zac's. She saw Zac's muscles relax at the feeling of her skin against his. His eyes still closed, Zac enveloped his girlfriend's hand in his, rubbing the top of her hand tenderly. Vanessa leaned forward and kissed his forehead, trailing a finger done his nose and caressing his chin for a moment. Zac smiled as he opened his eyes slowly, greeted by Vanessa's mocha eyes.

"Are you okay?" Vanessa whispered to her lover. The way she said those words were as if they were the most sacred words in the universe. At that moment, it seemed so.

"Fine. Just a little sidetracked by everything," Zac murmured, staring deeply into her bottomless eyes. He knew he had scared her, and apologized softly for doing so.

"It's not your fault, baby," Vanessa responded gently. "There's nothing you could've done. I definitely overreacted—it's just that I had had a nightmare right before you called…."

Zac's face twisted. "I know." Zac's eyebrows bunched together as he thought. "That was a very…creepy coincidence," he worded carefully. He was not sure what to say.

"Maybe it wasn't a coincidence."

Zac smiled, his mood brightening. "Don't start…."

"I'm just saying. I'm sorry, I was just freaked out by that. I've never been so paranoid before." She pressed her velvety lips to his forehead once more. "It was just…bad timing, I guess. A separation in a few weeks…."

Zac groaned. "I have no idea how we're going to cope…."

"I know. Lots and lots of sex beforehand," Vanessa remarked with a tiny laugh.

"Can't. I can't have sex for…was it six weeks, the doctor said?"

Zac was amused at Vanessa's stunned reaction.

"_What_?! How the fuck are we supposed to go for that long? Especially…before a three-month separation…?" Vanessa gaped speechlessly, taking a step back. "What are we supposed to do _now_?"

Zac chuckled in a low voice, and Vanessa could see that it hurt for him to laugh. Zac reached out for her hand and clasped it gently, tugging her forward and beckoning her to sit beside him on the bed.

"I don't want to hurt you," Vanessa whispered, her eyes fluttering over his body.

"You won't," Zac replied certainly. He didn't care if it did; it Vanessa was in his arms, the pain wouldn't matter.

Vanessa carefully situated herself in Zac's embrace. He pulled her close, squeezing her lightly for a moment and resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Thank you, baby. Thank you for answering the phone. I thought—I just…no one else would have in the middle of the night. It really was some sort of miracle that you answered," Zac murmured carefully. His fingers stroked her cheek gently, falling down to her warm neck and massaging it. Vanessa tilted her head towards his hand, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Of course."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

Their lips sealed in a chaste but meaningful kiss.

They had definitely gotten a scare that night—but it made Vanessa realize how she really _would _do anything for her Zac. She always had known she would, saying it to herself, but now she realized that she would, in reality, go to any lengths for him. Would it be too much to say that Zac was everything in her life? That life was not worth living without the color Zac painted to it?

As Vanessa stroked Zac's hair, the answer came to her.

_Of course. _Now it seemed obvious. _Always. _


End file.
